Local
New pro-gay congressman could emerge in Md.
Controversial Dem redistricting plan threatens Rep. Bartlett’s re-election
Ten-term Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) (left) faces his toughest challenge yet thanks to a redistricting plan. His challenger is businessman John Delaney.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a series profiling congressional districts in which the incumbent is not supportive of LGBT rights. The articles seek to assess the chances of electing a supportive candidate to help advance pro-LGBT bills that have been stalled in Congress.
LGBT advocates are hopeful that the long-stalled Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, will become one step closer to passage next year if a Democratic challenger unseats Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) in the once staunchly conservative 6th Congressional District.
Businessman and political newcomer John Delaney won the Democratic primary earlier this year to become his party’s challenger to Bartlett in a newly reshaped district that now includes a majority of Democratic voters, prompting most political observers to call him the frontrunner.
Delaney, who supports Maryland’s same-sex marriage law, is committed to becoming a co-sponsor of several LGBT rights bills pending in Congress, including ENDA, according to Will McDonald, his campaign press secretary.
Bartlett voted against ENDA when an earlier version of the bill came up before the House in 2007 and passed by a vote of 235 to 184. It died later that year when the Senate refused to take it up. It has been bottled up in committee since that time.
Based on his vote on ENDA and his refusal to back other LGBT supportive legislation, the Human Rights Campaign gave Bartlett a “0” rating in 2010 on LGBT-related issues.
HRC is expected its issue its next congressional ratings for the 112th Congress covering 2011-2012 in October. Capitol Hill observers say Bartlett doesn’t appear to have changed his views on LGBT issues since the last rating period.
Lisa Wright, press spokesperson for Bartlett’s congressional office, and Ted Dacey, spokesperson for Bartlett’s re-election campaign, did not respond to a request for comment on the congressman’s record on LGBT issues.
Wright said Bartlett has not released an official statement on the upcoming voter referendum in Maryland seeking to overturn the same-sex marriage law approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Martin O’Malley earlier this year. She said she would seek to obtain Bartlett’s view on same-sex marriage and other LGBT issues but didn’t get back by press time.
McDonald said Delaney has also pledged to become a co-sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages or other same-sex unions such as domestic partnerships or civil unions.
HRC and Maryland State Dels. Heather Mizeur and Bonnie Cullison, both Democrats and out lesbians, are among the groups and individuals that have endorsed Delaney.
“John Delaney will be a strong ally of the LGBT community in Congress in contrast to his opponent who has earned consistent zeros on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard,” said Michael Cole-Schwartz, an HRC spokesperson. “This is a critical race toward building pro-equality majorities in Congress.”
Carrie Evans, executive director of the statewide LGBT group Equality Maryland, said the group doesn’t endorse congressional candidates or get involved in those races.
“Equality Maryland PAC only endorses in state and local elections,” she said. “With almost 200 state legislative races the PAC only can do so much and being a statewide group the priority is state races.”
Political observers familiar with the history of ENDA say Maryland’s 6th Congressional District to some degree has been typical of districts throughout the country where incumbent House members have not been willing to support the bill. ENDA and earlier versions of the bill have been pending in Congress for more than 30 years.
The version of ENDA that passed in the House in 2007 called for banning employment discrimination based only on sexual orientation, which would have covered gays, lesbians and bisexuals. The current version of the bill includes a gender identity provision that covers transgender people. It has the strong backing of LGBT activists.
Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said Pelosi and fellow House Democratic leaders chose not to bring the trans-inclusive ENDA up for a vote in 2009 and 2010, when Democrats had a majority in the House, because they didn’t believe they had the votes to pass the measure.
This week Hammill said Pelosi believes ENDA could pass next year if Democrats are able to win the additional 25 seats needed to regain their majority and control of the House.
“We think there’s a good chance that will happen,” he said.
But other political observers and ENDA supporters, including congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), have said Democrats cannot regain a majority without relying on a dozen or more moderate to conservative Democratic candidates or incumbents in conservative-leaning swing districts who are capable of attracting moderate to conservative voters.
“That’s the political reality we face,” Norton has told gay activists in the past.
Norton and other LGBT supportive members of Congress, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who’s gay and the lead sponsor of ENDA in the House, have called on LGBT advocates to do the necessary work to change the hearts and minds of the relatively small number of moderate to conservative leaning Democrats, along with some Republicans, needed to pass ENDA in the House and Senate.
Prior to the redistricting that the Maryland Legislature approved last year in a highly controversial move, the 6th District consisted mostly of the state’s northwestern counties of Garrett, which borders on West Virginia; and Allegany and Washington counties, which border on conservative-leaning southern Pennsylvania.
The district was by far the most conservative of the state’s eight congressional districts.
Bartlett has represented the district since 1993 after winning election in November 1992 at the age of 65 as a retired scientist, part-time dairy farmer, and former professor at the University of Maryland. He is now completing his 10th term in office at the age of 85, becoming the second oldest member of the House.
According to the Almanac of American Politics, Bartlett, who has a bachelor’s degree in theology and biology and a Ph.D. in physiology, was among the state’s first House members to join the Tea Party Caucus in 2010. He has emerged as a strong conservative but has bucked fellow conservatives and Republicans on some issues that touch on science. He has said he believes global warming is a potential threat and he backs efforts to promote renewable energy, the Almanac reports. However, it says he also was among 33 Republicans to oppose renewal of the Voting Rights Act.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said Bartlett has never been among the corps of outspoken House members that actively oppose LGBT rights. But Cooper said Bartlett’s refusal to co-sponsor or express some support for bills like ENDA has promoted Log Cabin to choose not to endorse him this year and in past years.
Noting that Bartlett voted against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Cooper said, “Our members in Maryland have so far not sought our endorsement of him. He doesn’t have a record that would merit our endorsement in the past.”
Sources familiar with Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, meanwhile, say that while Bartlett hasn’t indicated an inclination to change his views on LGBT issues, many of his constituents in western Maryland have changed their views on those issues.
“My sense is we’ve come a long way since Clinton tried to lift the ban on gays in the military in the 1990s,” said Timothy Magrath, political science professor at Frostburg State University, which straddles the border of Garrett and Allegany counties. “I sense there is a lot more progressive thinking all across the region,” he said. “My sense is it won’t hurt a congressional candidate to support ENDA or other bills of that kind.”
Magrath and others familiar with the 6th District point out that the radical change in the demographics of the district brought about last year by redistricting have made it possible to defeat Bartlett rather than persuade him to change his views on LGBT equality.
The boundary changes, which have outraged Maryland Republican leaders, created a new 6th District where 58 percent of its electoral precincts voted for President Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
Prior to redistricting, GOP presidential contender John McCain won in the district by capturing 59 percent of the vote in 2008. George W. Bush won 64 percent of the vote in the previous incarnation of the district in 2004.
The Democratic-controlled Maryland Legislature, with strong support from Gov. O’Malley, brought about the demographic changes, among other things, by adding nearly 350,000 mostly liberal Democratic voters from Montgomery County.
Republican leaders responded by organizing a petition campaign to place the state redistricting plan on the ballot in a voter referendum in November in the same election that Delaney is expected to win the 6th District seat. A spokesperson for the State Board of Elections told the Blade that if voters overturn the redistricting plan Delaney would most likely take his seat in Congress while the legislature drafts a new redistricting plan to take effect in time for the 2014 congressional election.
“This is unprecedented,” said election board official Ross Goldstein.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
As mayor’s race takes shape, candidates endorse LGBTQ equality
Like nearly all recent D.C. elections, LGBTQ voters will be choosing a candidate for mayor in 2026 from a list of mostly strong LGBTQ rights supporters in the city’s June 16 primary.
As of March 30, the D.C. Board of Elections’ list of candidates who submitted the required number of petition signatures for the June 16 primary ballot included 10 mayoral candidates: nine Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate.
Among those candidates, six, all Democrats, have issued statements expressing strong support for LGBTQ rights, including the two leading Democratic contenders, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie and current Council member Janeese Lewis George, who represents Ward 4.
One of the lesser-known Democratic candidates who released an LGBTQ supportive statement, Rini Sampath, a cyber security consultant, told the Washington Blade she identifies as queer, becoming one of the first known LGBTQ D.C. mayoral candidates to gain access to a major party primary ballot.
“We’re living in an extremely diverse community, an extremely unique community,” she told the Blade. “And being able to self-label, self-identify as queer is something that I just want to take pride in.”
Similar to McDuffie and Lewis George, Sampath released statements to the Blade and the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ local political group, expressing support for LGBTQ rights and outlining plans for LGBTQ supportive policies if elected mayor.
Although many D.C. LGBTQ activists have said they have yet to decide whom to support for mayor, those who have decided appear to be divided between McDuffie and Lewis George. Most D.C. political observers consider McDuffie and Lewis George to be the two leading candidates in the mayoral race.
The other Democratic mayoral contenders who have released statements expressing support on LGBTQ issues include Gary Goodweather, a local real estate manager and developer who has been actively campaigning at LGBTQ events; Vincent Orange, a former At-Large and Ward 5 D.C. Council member; and Kathy Henderson, a longtime Ward 5 community activist and elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.
The remaining two Democratic mayoral candidates, Hope Solomon, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor and Dupont Circle civic activist; and Ernest Johnson, a real estate broker and Ward 1 community activist, did not respond to inquiries from the Blade and Capital Stonewall Democrats seeking information about their position on LGBTQ related issues.
Robert Gross, the Statehood Green Party candidate who is running unopposed in the June 16 primary, also didn’t respond to inquires from the Blade about his position on LGBTQ issues.
D.C. Board of Elections records show that at least five Republican candidates filed papers to run for mayor in the June 16 GOP primary, but none of them remained as candidates as of March 30, when the election board issued its updated candidate list.
Just one of the five Republican candidates replied to an email message from the Washington Blade sent to all mayoral candidates in early March seeking their position on LGBTQ issues. That candidate, Esa Muhammad, whose website identifies him as an engineer, consultant, and local business owner, sent a reply expressing opposition to LGBTQ rights.
“Unfortunately, I do not support LGBTQ because The God only created 2 genders (Adam/Eve),” he wrote. “Anyway, I will be fair to you all despite your sick way of looking at life,” he stated.
Capital Stonewall Democrats President Stevie McCarty said his group sent questionnaires to all the Democratic mayoral candidates as well as to Democrats running for other offices such as D.C. Council. Information posted on the group’s website shows only four of the mayoral candidates returned a complete questionnaire: McDuffie, Lewis George, Goodweather, and Sampath.
Each of them provides detailed information of their plans for supporting LGBTQ policies if elected and their record of support on LGBTQ issues. McCarty said the questionnaire responses for all candidates that submitted them can be accessed at outvotedc.org.
He said Capital Stonewall Democrats will hold virtual LGBTQ forums in April, including a mayoral forum on April 8. He said the group’s members will vote on the candidate endorsements online from April 20 through May 11, and the group expects to announce its endorsements May 14.
GLAA DC, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has issued candidate ratings for most D.C. elections since the 1970s, and the nonpartisan LGBTQ group was expected to issue ratings for mayoral candidates this year. But like in recent years, the group is expected to base its ratings on mostly non-LGBTQ issues, with a progressive, left-leaning perspective, according to a nine-page “Back to Basics GLAA Policy Brief 2026” that the group released in March.
The LGBTQ activists who are backing McDuffie or Lewis George appear to be gravitating to the two based on their political leanings separate from LGBTQ issues, just like voters in general. Lewis George, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is popular among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ “progressives.”
McDuffie, who is seen as a more moderate candidate along the lines of current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, is being supported by LGBTQ activists who hold those views, some of whom currently work in the Bowser administration.
Among Lewis George’s LGBTQ supporters are longtime Ward 8 community leader Philip Pannell and former Capital Stonewall Democrats president Howard Garrett. Among the LGBTQ McDuffie backers are longtime D.C. Democratic activists John Fanning and David Meadows.
Longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting McDuffie, has raised concerns about Lewis George’s backing by the national group Democratic Socialists of America. In Facebook postings, Rosenstein points to the Democratic Socialists of America’s opposition to Israel as a country and said it is viewed by many in the Jewish community as promoting antisemitism. He has criticized Lewis George for not speaking out against that and for accepting the DSA’s endorsement.
In an interview with the Blade, Lewis George strongly disputed that assessment, saying she has been a strong ally and supporter of the Jewish community.
“I’m a member of the Metro DSA here in D.C. that I work with to fight for labor and for tenant rights,” she said. “I’m also a member of the Democratic Party,” she added, saying, “There are things that the Democratic Party does that I don’t agree with. There are things that the national DSA does that I don’t agree with. That’s a group that I work with.”
“But I want to be clear that I am running for mayor to represent all of our community, and that includes our amazing and historical Jewish community here in D.C.,” she said. “I have had the amazing opportunity to spend time at synagogues and talking to Jewish leaders and groups and institutions. And so, there should be no worry here.”
Following are short excerpts from the detailed statements five of the nine Democratic mayoral candidates submitted to the Capital Stonewall Democrats or the Washington Blade.
Kenyan McDuffie: “As mayor, every piece of legislation I sign, craft, or endorse should also encompass the interest and input of the LGBTQ community members and advocates…From housing to health care and everything in between… We have a dire crisis regarding the rise in homelessness especially among the youth in our LGBTQ communities. In my administration that simply cannot be the status quo and will not be…I have been a consistent champion for our LGBTQ community and will remain so as Mayor of D.C.’
Janeese Lewis George: “As mayor, I will protect our LGBTQ+ neighbors against federal attacks on their identity, including their health care…On the Council I have been a strong supporter of pro-LGBTQ+ bills, including making D.C. a sanctuary for people seeking gender-affirming health care as well as addressing discrimination and harassment in nightlife and hospitality…And as mayor, I am prepared to move up and win those fights – a fight for D.C. statehood, a fight for our true economy, and a real opportunity to uplift our Black queer and trans youth.”
Gary Goodweather: “A Goodweather administration will defend every D.C. law protecting LGBTQ residents. I will establish a Defend DC office to coordinate the District’s legal and public response to federal overreach, with LGBTQ+ protections explicitly within its mandate…My affordable D.C. plan will produce 50,000 new homes with 36,000 affordable units, and I will ensure LGBTQ+ youth housing programs are funded as a budget priority.”
Rini Sampath: “I am an immigrant, proud queer woman, and a 10-year resident of Washington, D.C…For me, LGBTQ+ voters including transgender and nonbinary residents, are not a separate or symbolic constituency; they are a core part of a broader, multiracial, cross-ward coalition rooted in in equity and opportunity.”
Vincent Orange: “I have a long and consistent record of supporting LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion in the District of Columbia, grounded in both policy and personal commitment. As the District’s Democratic Committeeman from 2006 to 2015, I publicly supported marriage equality and voted accordingly … During my time on the D.C. Council, I worked to advance protections for LGBTQ+ residents, including authoring and passing legislation to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals in the workplace.”
Kathy Henderson: Kathy Henderson has maintained a consistent record of treating all members of the community with dignity, compassion, and respect, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, identity, political party, national origin, or ideology. Kathy Henderson embraced the late Wanda Alston as a colleague and good friend…Alston was the first director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Henderson helped to organize and facilitate the first LGBTQ citizens summit.”
Local
D.C.’s affirming congregations to mark Holy Week, Easter
Dignity Washington among groups holding events
LGBTQ-friendly congregations in the D.C. area this week are marking Easter and Holy Week.
The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C., located in Mount Vernon Square, holds both online and in-person services.
An online-only Good Friday service will take place on April 3 at 7 p.m. In person or online Resurrection Sunday services will take place on April 5 at 10:30 a.m.
Dignity Washington, an LGBTQ Catholic group, is also holding Holy Week and Easter events.
The group on March 29 held a Palm Sunday prayer event. Dignity Washington on April 5 will hold a Mass at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church at 6 p.m. It will be livestreamed on Facebook.
Foundry United Methodist Church holds two Easter Sunday services at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
Riverside Baptist Church, located in Southwest Washington, is an “Inclusive, Multicultural, Christ-Centered” congregation that also offers Holy Week and Easter activities.
The church on Good Friday at 3 p.m. is holding an outreach period in which they will clean up the neighborhood. Easter Sunday services will be held at 9:45 a.m., starting with a musical prelude, followed by services.
The church offers weekly “Wednesday Witness,” a youth and safety zone drop-in, serving as a safe space for the students of Jefferson Middle School and the community. It takes place from 3-5 p.m.
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center offers a comprehensive list of inclusive faith communities on its website. The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists offers a list of churches partnered with their organization that are inclusive and mainly Baptist, but the group does feature churches of other denominations.
The 18th National Rainbow Seder took place at the Human Rights Campaign on March 29. The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event included Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder was “Liberation for All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern led it.
The Seder honored the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
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